Health Ministry outlines guidelines for traditional medicine practice

Sunyani, Aug. 31, GNA - The Ministry of Health has developed guidelines for the registration of traditional medicine practice to help assess each practitioner on merit and accredited.

Launching the guidelines in Sunyani on Friday, Dr. Gladys Ashitey, Deputy Minister of Health, said the Ministry would ensure that the best practices would be identified and accredited whilst quackery would be exposed and eliminated.

The occasion was the commemoration of the fifth African Traditional Medicine Day and eighth traditional Medicine Week, which was under the theme: "Research and development of traditional medicine in the World Health Organisation (WHO) - Africa Region".

The deputy Minister expressed the hope that the guidelines would help regulate traditional medicine practice and services and urged relevant decentralised agencies to partner with the Ministry to successfully implement them.

She thanked the sponsors and development partners, particularly WHO-Africa, for its continuing technical and financial support, which she said had propelled traditional medicine development to the current stage.

Mr Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, suggested the establishment of branches of research institutions throughout the country to help increase the efficacy of traditional medicine and to eliminate quack practitioners. "The influx of these quacks have made people to doubt the efficacy of traditional medicine", he said and advised practitioners to think of the proper packaging of their products to attract market and increased revenue.

Agya Appiah, President of Ghana Federation of Traditional Medical Practitioners, expressed regret that the country "is sitting on numerous medical research findings that have not been turned into mass produce". He urged that the Centre for Scientific Research into Plant Medicine at Mampong-Akwapim in the Eastern Region be encouraged and developed to engage in large-scale traditional medicine production through partnership with the private sector.